I don’t know what your plans are for Easter. Mine generally include a nice walk in the English countryside. There is something incalculably consoling about our landscape. I might even find myself leaning on a stile and looking at some Easter lambs while they do that sudden vertical jump thing, as though they have suddenly found they are standing over a geyser.

But perhaps I should instead scour the rolling hills for signs of racism which I could then report to the relevant authorities.

What am I going on about, some saner readers might be wondering. Well, I have been reading reports in the British press that the English countryside is about to be ‘studied’ by ‘hate crime experts’ to find out whether ‘rural racism’ is lurking. This deeply rigorous academic exercise is going to be led by academics ‘specialising in British colonialism and hate studies’, seeking to record the ‘lived realities’ of ethnic minorities who live or hike there.

There are times when you can feel all of your fingers and toes being trodden upon. This is such a time. Consider the least of the irritations here. What exactly is a ‘hate crime expert’? And what’s with that bumf about ‘lived realities’? What other type of reality is there? Might these deluded experts look for entirely imaginary realities?

Maybe they will, as it happens, because it is clear from the wording and the aspirations of this study that it is not a study, but the usual firing squad. I doubt that even one of the ‘experts’ commissioned by the idiot Leverhulme Trust has any knowledge of the English countryside or its history. In fact I would bet that none of them knows anything about colonialism either. All will simply be propelled by the usual list of grievances against our country and everything in it, right down to the last hedgerow. Why can I say this with such certainty? Because the same verdict keeps being read out.

Just last month the BBC website ran a lead story about ‘Muslim hikers’ allegedly suffering ‘abuse over Peak District prayer signs’. But the abuse was online. That’s a surprise – for most of us the online world is a buttercup field of delight and harmony.

Yet it is an important detail – that while no farmer came running over to the hikers and abused them, still they were made into the victims. And what was the potential casus belli? This walking group had teamed up with various sporting brands in an effort to get more Muslims hiking in the Peak District. Identifying ‘barriers’ to doing so, they came up with the idea that there are problems with praying outdoors. So they created bespoke prayer mats and put up signs along one of the most popular hiking routes in Derby-shire pointing in the direction of Mecca.

I have little doubt that as with so much that occurs in relation to the Muslim faith, this whole thing will be very much a two-way street – like Manchester Cathedral’s recent decision to host an Islamic prayer service and Ramadan feast. I am quite certain that in the wake of that we can look forward to mosques hosting Anglican Eucharists and prayers to the risen Christ. Similarly, I am sure that as we speak the authorities in Mecca are putting up signs pointing devoted hikers in the direction of the Peak District. Since no infidel is even allowed into the city of Mecca, such signs might be redundant. But then I’d have thought that putting up signs for Mecca in the Peak District is just as pointless. If you head out for a hike and are that desperate to carry out your religious devotions, a compass ought to suffice.

Then again, if you don’t do such stunts as putting up Mecca signs, the claims of rural racism will only multiply. In the past couple of years it seems as though the countryside has been under constant scrutiny.

We have had Heritage England spending thousands of pounds on a ‘slavery audit’. A presenter from the BBC’s once-charming Countryfile denounced rural Britain for suffering from ‘lingering, ambient racism’. No less an authority than Defra has commissioned a report into why black, Asian and other minority ethnic groups see the countryside as a ‘white’ environment. If this persists, Defra has warned, ‘our countryside will end up being irrelevant to the country that actually exists’. And of course there is the dear old BBC, which in the wake of the killing of George Floyd investigated rural ‘racism’ by asking why Dorset is 98 per cent white.

Had these groups approached me, I could have saved them a pretty penny. It seems almost obvious to me that if you, your parents or grandparents move to another country, you will find that this country is different from the one that you or they left.

I imagine that if my grandparents had moved from the UK to Jamaica, I might still find that place rather dominated by Jamaicans. Had my grandparents moved to Pakistan, I might discover that the vast majority of people there are not white. What might I do after such a discovery? Well, I suppose I might decide to condemn the people and places of these countries, insisting that no one is truly free until I can wander gaily across Waziristan and cry ‘hate crime’ if I find a negative comment on Facebook. Yet such acts would strike me as not just rude, but actively hostile. My neighbours and fellow countrymen might not take kindly to this behaviour.

But there’s the problem with being a tolerant and decent society. Everyone comes to you because of your virtues. Then a certain cohort abuses those virtues. Next a group of idiots already in your midst insult you and complain because your country does not sufficiently resemble the country that they left.

How to politely correct this? I would say ‘Take a hike’, but that might simply set off a whole new round of racism audits.